Fifteen Letters On Education In Singapore: Reflections from a Visit to Singapore In 2015 By a Delegation of Educators from Massachusetts

By Fernando M. Reimers and E. B. O’Donnell

When a group of educators from Massachusetts traveled to Singapore to visit schools and talk to teachers, teacher educators, and school and system-level leaders in the fall of 2015, they were determined to learn how Singapore had built a high-performing education system.

Singapore has transitioned from an education system focused simply on universal literacy and primary education to one that aims for universal high school graduation and post-secondary success. It has gone from a developing nation in 1965 to a first-world economy today—and it has done so largely by focusing on education.

In this series of letters, members of the delegation identify the educational practices and policies that have enabled Singapore to become a prosperous knowledge economy. Many of their practices and successes could be transferred to the United States and elsewhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483450636

Book preview

2016

FIFTEEN LETTERS

on EDUCATION

in SINGAPORE

Reflections from a Visit to Singapore in 2015 by a Delegation of Educators from Massachusetts

Edited by Fernando M. Reimers and E. B. O'Donnell

with contributions from

Lisa Battaglino, Connie K. Chung, Mitalene Fletcher,

David Harris, Joey Lee, Vanessa Lipschitz, Ee-Ling Low,

David Lussier, Christine McCormick, Meghan O'Keefe,

Oon-Seng Tan, Paul F. Toner, and Eleonora Villegas-Reimers

© 2016, Fernando M. Reimers and E.B. O'Donnell (Editors) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5062-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5063-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906430

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/25/2016

CONTENTS

Introduction. How learning from Singapore can support improvement at home

Implications for Educator Preparation and Support in Massachusetts

Letter 1. Lessons for improving the quality of teacher preparation programs and instruction in the commonwealth -- by Paul F. Toner

Letter 2. Sharing the Singapore Story: Reflections on the Visit by U.S. Education Leaders -- by Oon-Seng Tan

Letter 3. Planning the Visit by U.S. Education Leaders: From Conceptualisation to Realisation -- by Ee-Ling Low

Letter 4. Reflections on a Nation by a New Hampshire Teacher of the Year -- by Joey Lee

Letter 5. Teachers and teacher education in Singapore -- by Eleonora Villegas-Reimers

Letter 6. Reflections on Singapore: An Ecology of Coherence -- by David Lussier

Letter 7. Observations from the Dean of a College of Education -- by Christine McCormick

Letter 8. A Systemic and Systematic Approach to Teaching and Learning: Playing the Long Game in Education -- by Connie K. Chung

Letter 9. Purposes, Professionals, and Policies in Action -- by Mitalene Fletcher

Letter 10. The Quest to Find Out What is Normal in Singapore -- by Lisa Battaglino

Letter 11. Lessons on Coherence, Commitment, and Equity Far From Home -- by E. B. O'Donnell

Letter 12. Clarity, Commitment, and Coherence -- by Vanessa Lipschitz

Letter 13. Five Reflections on a Thought-Provoking Trip -- by Meghan O'Keefe

Letter 14. Ten Lessons from Singapore -- by David Harris

Letter 15. Learning from Singapore: Reflections from a Visit with a Delegation of Educators from Massachusetts -- by Fernando M. Reimers

Appendix: The Authors

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION. HOW LEARNING FROM SINGAPORE CAN SUPPORT IMPROVEMENT AT HOME

BY FERNANDO M. REIMERS

THE ORIGINS OF THIS LITTLE BOOK

This publication is the compilation of a series of short reflections from a small group of educators from Massachusetts who travelled together to Singapore to learn about that country's remarkable education journey. Our simple goal in publishing this document is to have a tangible and practical resource we can use to share with colleagues our reflections about lessons learned on that visit, as well as our thoughts about possible implications of Singapore's practice for educators in Massachusetts.

The background of this project is simple. As part of a research project on 21st century education¹ I lead at Harvard University, the Global Education Innovation Initiative², I had been studying the strategic, pragmatic, and successful approach Singapore's education leaders followed to build a high quality education system over the course of the country's short history. In the context of our research collaboration, I invited some of my colleagues at Singapore's National Institute of Education (NIE) to participate in a policy roundtable at Harvard. I also invited to this event a number of education leaders from Massachusetts, including the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education and some of his senior staff, members of the state board of higher education, leaders of several teacher education institutions, among others. There was real interest at that meeting in the way in which Singapore had professionalized the teaching force and in how they prepared school leaders, two strategies that made up their basic approach to improving education quality.

Paul Toner, a fellow member of the State Board of Higher Education and former President of the Massachusetts Teacher Association, suggested that we should find a way to follow this meeting up with a visit to Singapore so that we could examine up close some of the educational programs and practices our colleagues had described. I reached out to Professor Oon-Seng Tan, Director of Singapore's National Institute of Education, who enthusiastically responded to our request, and agreed to host us for a visit that would help us meet with colleagues directly involved in programs of teacher and principal preparation, visit the NIE, visit schools and other education institutions, and talk to school principals and teachers. We then approached Kate Berseth, Vice President of Education First, an education company that specializes in student and educator international travel, and she and her colleagues agreed to work with us to organize this visit. Finally, we approached Nick Donohue, President of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, who provided financial support for the visit. We then worked with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to invite deans of large teacher preparation programs in the state, district leaders, and other individuals working in teacher education to participate in the trip. Finally, in October of 2015 we went to Singapore where we spent a week talking with colleagues at the National Institute of Education, at the Singapore's Teachers Union, and at various schools.

Throughout the trip, I kept thinking about how valuable international travel was to broaden one's understanding of the educational enterprise and how to improve it. In our last day in Singapore, I reminded the members of our group that such international exchange of ideas had been critical to the establishment of the American education system. John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, wrote admiringly about the education system of Prussia while he served as ambassador there in his Letters on Silesia, a book that helped many of his contemporaries in the United States learn about Prussia's early system of public education. Similarly, Horace Mann, the first Secretary of Education of Massachusetts, wrote a book analyzing the education systems of Germany and France, which helped advance his campaign for public education in the United States³. Inspired by Letters on Silesia, I asked my fellow travelers whether they would be open to writing Letters on Singapore. All agreed---I suspect it was as much because they saw potential value in the idea as because it gave us an opportunity to continue our collaboration upon return from this trip. We had greatly enjoyed learning together and from one another in Singapore.

THE ROLE OF COMPARISON AND EXCHANGE OF IDEAS IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

The process of comparison is central to how we make sense of the world. Comparisons, of events that precede and follow other events, of outcomes associated with other events and various conditions, are central to helping us interpret the world, to identify regularities, to generate hypotheses, and to test ideas about causes and effects, in short to describe and to understand the world. The scientific method, a powerful approach that disciplines the human mind in interpreting the world, is essentially a system of rules so that these comparisons are carried away in a manner that can yield intersubjective agreement about the interpretations of the phenomena under study. Comparisons are done in the physical sciences, as well as in the social sciences. Many social sciences---including psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science---have a comparative subfield that is concerned with the systematic study of similarities and differences across cultures of the particular objects of study of the discipline. This is the case with comparative psychology, sociology, political science, or anthropology.

While education is a profession as well as a science, efforts to build the knowledge base that informs the practice of education have also included the systematic study of comparisons. One of the early proponents of the scientific study of education, Marc Antoine Jullien, proposed two forms of comparative study to inform the enterprise. The first is the study of various pedagogical approaches which existed in his time as well as the systematic exchange of the ideas emerging from those studies among researchers, practitioners and decision makers. The second form is a systematic survey of the organization of schools in different jurisdictions⁴. What is most remarkable about Jullien's ideas, is that he proposed them in the late 18th century---precisely at the time that many nations in Europe engaged in the creation of their public education systems. Jullien might have had in mind that the ambitious undertaking of building such public systems might benefit from a scientific foundation, and that comparisons would have only made the science better.

Much of the comparative knowledge which informed the early creation of public education systems travelled not only in the form of books or letters, but in the stories of travelers who individually and in groups took observations about educational practice from one place to another or travelled to disseminate their methods. Jullien himself, an admirer of the educational method developed by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, travelled to study the various institutes that had been established by Pestalozzi and his followers. Pestalozzi himself---who had developed an approach to education based on the revolutionary idea that children are not little adults, that development takes place in stages, and that education should be tailored to the particular stage of the learner---travelled to advocate for his ideas⁵. In 1804 he travelled to Paris to visit Napoleon in hopes of persuading the general of the merits of his approach, as the institute Pestalozzi had established in Burgdorf was in jeopardy as a result of reforms adopted by the Swiss government under Napoleon's influence. Given that one of Pestalozzi's insights was that the goal of education should be to foster the development of the full range of dimensions of the human personality, it is unfortunate that he was unsuccessful in persuading Napoleon of the merit of his approach. Public education around the world might be more comprehensive today than it is had Pestalozzi succeeded.

In contrast, the educational ideas of a contemporary of Pestalozzi, another global traveler, Joseph Lancaster, achieved more global influence---arguably because in 1808 Lancaster and his associates created an organization, the Society for Promoting the Lancasterian System for the Education of the Children of the Poor, to disseminate his method. Lancaster established a free elementary school in Southwark, England, in 1798, and in 1803 published a book describing the method Improvements in Education. He traveled widely to lecture on his ideas and to assist in the establishment of schools adopting the monitorial method which would serve as teacher training centers. In 1818 he helped to establish a school in Philadelphia. He also helped establish schools in Baltimore (United States), Montreal